In the music industry, the act of holding and displaying expensive, fragile instruments, either in sales or by private collectors, has an inherent problem on how to securely hold several without scratching and still have them readily available. Additional problems arise when the instruments require being locked in place separately, for individual supervised handling.
In sales, display space is always at a premium, and with valuable and fragile string instruments, it is most common practice to retain these items behind locked, sliding glass doors which limit the display space available. Many times guitars are put on high shelves for display and to keep the patrons from readily handling them without supervision by a store employee. This practice makes it very difficult, especially for a short sales person, to get the instrument down for supervised handling. Private collectors on the other hand, do not always desire large display cabinets with sliding glass doors in their homes.
Conventional guitar holding devices currently available are generally made to hold one instrument only or for multiple instruments but lacking in adjustability and ease of use. Other multi purpose racks for hanging several objects do not provide a real means to adequately protect a fragile musical instrument, and fail to provide a means of locking or securing each item individually retained thereupon.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,823 of Carl D. Kingery teaches of an improved rack for ornamental display of a single instrument. The rack mounts against a vertical wall and is fully adjustable thereby accommodating instruments of varying neck widths, head sizes and orientations. While this rack handles a single instrument, it has no locking means, allows the guitar to swing like a pendulum, and fails to provide the protection necessary for the finish on an expensive instrument in that it displays it with a binding force at a single location of the neck.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,751 of Marc C. Cherry discloses an apparatus holding a guitar in a playing position that connects to the snap fasteners of the guitar body. The apparatus includes a bracket for receiving the strap fasteners and supports the instrument at the strap fasteners. The bracket is supported by a support part such that the instrument is held in a substantially horizontal playing position. This device has been developed to hold an instrument in a free standing position while the musician can stand or sit and play it, similar to the stand commonly used to hold the sheets of music. This device however, could not be readily used for storage or sales in that it could easily be knocked over by a customer, it requires strap fasteners, and there is no convenient locking means, nor is there any manner to secure the instrument in a mount that prevents abrasion to the exterior.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,083,729 (Ford) ET AL teaches a racking device that relates to a storage system for holding athletic equipment. More specifically, it provides a system for the storage of athletic equipment, such as bicycles, skis, and the like. This device, also being made from extruded aluminum, has been designed to carry a great deal of weight, possibly several bicycles, but does not incorporate any soft cushioning means required to prevent exterior abrasion to an expensive instrument like a guitar, it lacks adjustability, and also has no locking means that is easily removable during a short sale review.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,722,652 of Paul F. Busch ET AL is an invention directed in general to the storage and locking facilities and more particularly to a coin-operated rack for storing and locking skis. Though this has the capability of locking, it is specifically designed for skies and ski paraphernalia, and has no adaptive cushioning means and could not be reasonably adapted to hold and display multiple guitars.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,037,815 of Arthur D. DeLano teaches of a musical instrument support for holding an instrument on a wall-mounted bracket in an elevated position above the floor. The instrument support is detachable from the bracket, and is collapsible from a position in which it holds the instrument to a transport or storage position and is provided with scales to facilitate unfolding the instrument support to a desired size to accommodate a given instrument. This device has been designed to support and hold a single musical instrument on the wall with its face toward the ceiling where a customer cannot see it. Additionally it has no locking capability, no ability to hold more than a single instrument, and no means to cushion the exterior during mounting and removal.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,091,008 of Ming-Ti Yu describes an invention to provide a guitar hanger that has a hanging device to be rotated according to a center of gravity of the guitar hung on the hanging device. This invention is a simple rotatable rod assembly for hanging a single guitar on a wall, as in a pegboard attachment. It has no locking means and has no means to hold several instruments in a freestanding position.
As such, there is a continuing need for new and improved space saving device for storage and displaying guitars and similar articles for sale in music stores. Such a device should provide secure mounting of a plurality of instruments while concurrently providing easy removal and replacement of each individual instrument so mounted. Such a device should also provide protection for the delicate exterior of a guitar during removal and mounting. Further, such a device should be designed to provide both a retail sales display mount while concurrently providing private collectors with a device to store and protect their valued possessions in a locked or securely mounted environment.